Some know full well that government needs to spend when the private sector isn’t, but are afraid to explain Econ 101 to their constituents. But others truly believe that our government risks losing credibility in the global bond market if we take on any more debt, and our economy will recover on its own soon enough.

Initial [jobless] claims are above the “breakeven” level where there are neither job losses nor job gains, and this level indicates continued job losses. Initial claims have been fairly flat for the last several months and show no sign of making a strong downward movement, and there’s little in other data series to suggest such an improvement is just around the corner … this latest piece of bad news hopefully has policymakers at least questioning the wisdom of the “wait and see” approach…

…it has become clear that investors aren’t worried about deficits; they’re worried about stagnation and deflation. And they’ve been signaling that concern by driving interest rates on the debt of major economies lower, not higher.

Thoma is properly pessimistic that this week’s disappointing jobless data will prompt Congress to suddenly step on the gas pedal. Even if all 12 Democratic deficit hysterics came to their senses, it’s extremely unlikely that a single Republican Senator would break party ranks and give Democrats a big political victory weeks before the midterm elections.

But there is a small window of opportunity for some Senators to change course — this December, when the post-election session of Congress convenes.

Conservatives have been trying to use what is unfortunately known as the “lame duck” Congressional session — the session between Election Day and the swearing-in of new members — to stoke fear among voters. They argue a sneaky power grab is planned to ram through legislation to cap carbon pollution, ease union organizing and reform our immigration system.

Of course, having elected officials pass legislation during their terms of office is not at all a power grab.

Legislative ethics aside, a last-minute flurry of major reforms is simply not going to happen. All those issues have not cleared the Senate because they split them Dem caucus and attract few if any Republican votes. The 60 votes will not magically materialize after Election Day.

But maybe, just maybe, a sense of economic emergency could propel certain Senators to clear real job creation legislation before a likely increase in the deficit hysteric Senatorial ranks is sworn in.

Plus, there are the three northeast Republicans, who have least voted for some of the unemployment insurance extensions:

Scott Brown (MA)
Susan Collins (ME)
Olympia Snowe (ME)

And that’s 22.

Yet be aware, there are two special elections for currently Democratic-held seats being held simultaneously with the general election — meaning that if the Republican wins, he would be seated immediately to finish out the current term. Their votes would surely be needed to pass emergency jobs legislation in December.

Republicans, who want you to think they take terrorism more seriously than President Obama because they like to say "radical Islam," are playing games with the money to protect us from terrorist attacks.

Tom Edsall at The New York Times argues that the Democrats should be worried because of "how far the Republican Party has traveled." But let's not overstate the case.

About Bill Scher

Bill Scher is the Online Campaign Manager at Campaign for America's Future, and the executive editor of LiberalOasis.com. He is the author of Wait! Don't Move To Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America, a regular contributor to Bloggingheads.tv and host of the LiberalOasis Radio Show weekly podcast. He has opinion articles that have been published by the New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Omaha World-Herald, and has made appearances on CNN, MSNBC and NPR among other TV and radio outlets.